Title: Assessing the responsiveness of supply chain - structural equation modelling based approach

Authors: P. Raghuram; P.G. Saleeshya

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India

Abstract: Companies worldwide have now realised that 'customer focus' is what wins the game. As demands of the customer become more and more volatile and unpredictable, they have to stay ahead of their competitors in fulfilling the needs of the customer. The supply chain as a 'unit' has to compete against other supply chains for reaching out and delighting the customer. Responding fast to the changing customer needs has been an intangible factor underlying a successful business. Thus, responsiveness of the supply chain has become the differentiator between the competing supply chains. In this paper, the end-to-end supply chain factors influencing responsiveness are identified from extant literature and a model of responsiveness of the supply chain has been developed by conducting a survey of 204 pump manufacturers. The developed model has been validated through confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modelling. These findings can help to identify the areas of improvement for the supply chain and may lead to a focused improvement in these areas thus improving responsiveness and profitability.

Keywords: supply chain responsiveness; SCR; structural equation modelling; SEM; material flow; information flow; lead times; organisational capability; supply chain management; SCM; pump manufacturing; confirmatory factor analysis; CFA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2016.080253

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2016 Vol.25 No.4, pp.558 - 579

Received: 20 Jul 2015
Accepted: 03 Oct 2015
Published online: 09 Nov 2016 *

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